Improved cigar-wrapper



UNITED STATES PATENT ()FFrcE.

CHRISTOPHER E. ROFFEE, OF BA RRINGTON, RHODE ISLAND.

IMPROVED CIGAR-WRAPPER.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 50,038, dated September 19, 1865.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CHRISTOPHER E. ROF- FEE, of Barrington, in the county of Bristol and State of Rhode Island, have invented a new and useful article of manufacture to be used as a substitute for tobaccoleaf wrappers for cigars; and I do hereby declare that the following specification is a full, clear, and exact description thereof.

The tobacco-leaf which is used as the wrapper to inclose and hold the short pieces which make up the filling or body is the mostimportaut item in the cost of a cigar. The present high price which this commands so increases the cost of the manufactured article as to place the enjoyment of even the inferior grades beyond the means of the mass of people who heretofore have been accustomed to indulge in the gratification which the use of tobacco in this form affords. In view of this fact I have sought to produce an article which shall, for all the lower grades of cigars, answer as well for the purpose of a wrapper as the natural leaf usually employed, and which in appearance, in odor, and in the manner in which it burns can hardly be distinguished therefrom.

My invention consists in covering the surface of thin brown paper of commerce with a solution of tobacco. 1 take for this purpose refuse tobacco of any kind and steep it in Water until the juice is extracted and then straining it through a cloth boil the liquor until it has been reduced to the consistency of a thin paste. To each gallon of the liquor so boiled down I prefer to add about one ounce of balllicorice, to destroy the taste and smell of the paper, and about one pennyweight of saltpeter, to imitate that which is generated natu- 1 aprally in tobacco when packed in bales.

ply then the composition so made with a brush to both sides of sheets of brown paper like that used for nice wrapping paper in the shops, and which should be strong as well as pliable and of the thickness of the natural leaf. A single application will, if the solution is of the proper strength and consistency, saturate the paper sufficiently to give it the color which is known to tobacconists as claro or light brown, and a repeated application will produce the darker color, known as oscuro.

I do not deem it essential to the production of the article that any other material should be used for the coating of the paper than the juice of the tobacco-plant, but I think that the addition of a small quantity of the other materials named are ofadvautage; but the quantities of each may be varied from those above Sheets of paper so prepared should be placed in a damp place and treated in precisely the same manner in manufacturing the cigar that natural leaf-tobacco would be, and it will be found that they possess all the qualities and characteristics of the original of which they are an imitation, while the cost is but trifling in comparison.

I do not claim making stems and refuse to bacco into paper; neither do I claim impregnating paper with an infusion of tobacco and other ingredients.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

Making an artificial wrapper for cigars by covering the common brown paper of cornmerce with a coating of paste made from tobacco, in the manner substantially as described.

CHRISTOPHER E. ROFFE E. 

